Beautiful production can’t free Anastasia from trappings of history
The daughter of autocratic rulers who lived in a gilded fortress with little care for their people is a fraught heroine on which to anchor a feel-good musical.
**MUSICAL
****Anastasia ★★★
**Regent Theatre, until February 20
A perfect storm of misinformation, political turmoil and the collective desire for a fairytale culminated in the legend of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, who was rumoured for decades to be alive even as the rest of her family – the last reigning monarchs of Russia – were believed to have been executed by the Bolsheviks.
Georgina Hopson as the amnesiac street sweeper Anya in Anastasia.Credit: Jeff Busby
Finding its expression in the 1956 film starring Ingrid Bergman and 20th Century Fox’s first animated feature in 1997, the myth of Anastasia then found its way to Broadway, culminating in the 2017 premiere of the namesake musical.
With music and lyrics by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens – the same two who composed the animation’s score – and a book by Terrence McNally, there’s pedigree underpinning this stage production.
Tsarist Saint Petersburg, post-revolution Leningrad and the swinging 1920s of Paris are evocatively reimagined for stage as a trio of misfits – an amnesiac street-sweeper called Anya and her two co-conspirators Dmitri and Vlad – journeys across the border for disparate reasons.
Linda Cho’s resplendent costuming garb the royals and peasants alike, Alexander Dodge’s set design recalls the grandiosity of the Romanovs’ reign and Parisian splendour with majestic archways and luxurious drapery, and Aaron Rhyne’s ornate projections lend the stage an unmistakeable verisimilitude and dimension.
Rodney Dobson, Georgina Hopson and Robert Tripolino as the trio of misfits at the heart of the action in Anastasia. Credit: Jeff Busby
A rotating skeletal train carriage that the characters cavort around in the travelling sequence is a particular highlight, as is a stunning performance of Swan Lake, where the tensions of the show-in-a-show mirror the anxieties of the central characters at a crucial point.
Donald Holder’s bold lighting ties it all together, bathing cinematic bursts of heightened drama in intermittent swathes of lilac, red and blue, while David Chase’s choreography sees the ensemble break out in spirited displays of Russian folk dancing.
